Another Journey
by Thuvia
Summary: Sarah wasn\'t the only one to go through the Labyrinth. This is the story of four others who made the journey. A prequel/companion piece to \\
1. Entrance to the Labyrinth

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth or the Labyrinth 

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth or the Labyrinth.

"Well, here we are," Lene said, looking down from the hill into the Labyrinth. "Thirteen hours to get us all through that."

Her brother and sisters behind her nodded. Susan, six years old, slipped her hand into Lene's. "Lene, I'm scared," she said.

She squeezed her hand. "Don't worry," Lene said reassuringly. "We'll make it."

"We won't make anything if we don't start," said Dan. He stepped past her and ran towards the gates of the Labyrinth. Natalie followed him, and Susan and Lene followed her.

Dan stopped before the Labyrinth's walls. "There has to be a way inright?" he asked.

Lene stepped forwards and looked at the walls. "There must be a door somewhere. We'll go left, you go right. If you find a door, come back for us. If you don't find anything in ten minutes, turn around and come back." She took Susan's hand and they started off.

After a few minutes of walking, they found a door. Lene shoved on it. It opened. She looked at Susan. "We found a door, and it isn't locked. Come on, let's go find Dan and Natalie." They turned back. 

Dan and Natalie came running up to them. "We found the door!" Dan said.

"We found a door, too," Lene said. "I think ours is closer."   
  
He shrugged, and Susan and Lene turned around. They walked back to their door, opened it, and stepped in.


	2. Dragon's Den

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, or the Labyrinth 

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, or the Labyrinth.

Dan stepped through the doorway and looked around. He was standing in the middle of a great stone ruin, surrounded by fallen boulders. Lene stepped through after him, then Susan darted around him. "Susan-wait!" he said.

"I want to explore!" she shouted back at him.

Dan sighed and ran after her. She darted rapidly around the rocks; Dan, ten years older and nearly a hundred pounds heavier, had trouble keeping up.

He rounded a big boulder and stopped suddenly. Susan was standing there in the rocks, staring at something. "Dan-look," she said, kneeling before something gleaming and red.

He looked. The red thing was about his size, and sprawled out on the ground. It seemed to be alive. He could see its scales, rather snakelike, but bigger and redder. But it wasn't a snake; it had about six legs, and an elaborate head. In fact, it was a-

-dragon.

A very injured dragon, in fact. One of its forelegs was thrown back, against the rocks, and he could see a deep, bloody gash along the leg. "Help her!" Susan demanded.

"I don't know" Dan said nervously. The dragon had had thirty talons that he could see-and probably sharp teeth, too. Dan knew better than to touch an injured animal; the dragon looked more dangerous.

"She won't hurt you, she told me so. Please, please help her!"

Dan gritted his teeth and pulled off his shirt, then started ripping it up. "Look for some water, and some wood," he said. "I need to sterilize this. And it wouldn't hurt to wash the wound, either."

Susan nodded and darted off, then returned with a wooden bucket filled with water. "I can't find any wood. Can you still use this?"

"It should be boiled," said Lene, walking up behind them. "That will sterilize it."

"What is that thing?" Natalie added.

"A dragon," said Dan, putting his shirt in the water. "I suppose-I hope-that this will be better than nothing."

"Dan, step back!" Susan yelled.

Startled, he leaped to his feet and jumped away from the bucket. A burst of reddish fire blasted past him, hitting the bucket and warming it until the water inside began to bubble. Dan stepped forwards and looked at the pot, waiting for it to cool. Then he fished a piece of his shirt out of the bucket.

"Tell her to hold still. This is going to hurt." He began to clean the wound with the piece of shirt, then folded a larger piece into a pad and bound it over the wound. Finished, he stood up. "Now what do we do?" he asked.

Lene stepped forwards and studied the dragon. "I don't think we can carry her, and still make it on time."

Susan scratched the dragon's head. "But we can't leave her here!" she said.

The dragon shuddered and pulled herself to her feet. Holding the injured foot aloft, she blew on it. Dan could see the bandage heating and drying. The dragon started walking. She spread her wings and pulled herself into the air. 

"She says she can manage on her own," Susan said, "but that she can't take care of her egg." She bent down and began pulling rocks up. She pulled a round, white thing about the size of a chicken egg out of the rocks. "She wants me to take care of her egg!"

Lene nodded and turned to the dragon. "Forgive me, lady," she said formally. "We have to be going now, for we have to reach the castle at the center of the Labyrinth soon."

The dragon hissed. Susan started walking, tucking the dragon's egg inside her shirt. "Come on, everybody!" she said. "She says this is the best way!"

Natalie, Lene, and Dan walked after her.


	3. Lost in the Mists

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth or the Labyrinth 

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth or the Labyrinth.

Susan led them to a gate at the edge of the ruin. "Through there," she said. "I don't know what's after this gate."

Dan stepped forwards, through the gate. Natalie followed him.

"Foggy," Magdalene commented. Natalie didn't reply. It was an understatement.

She could see her feet, so she could walk without needing to feel her way. But aside from that, she couldn't see anything. Not even her sisters and brother. 

"Where are you?" Susan asked from behind her.

"I'm here," Natalie said loudly. "Come to the sound of my voice."

Dan stumbled into her. A moment later, Lene put her hand on Natalie's shoulder. "Which way?" Susan asked.

"We have to be careful, or we'll end up walking in circles," Lene replied. She frowned. "I don't see how we're going to get through this-"

"QUIET!" Natalie snapped. In the silence that followed, she listened carefully. There it was-the sound of a brook. She closed her eyes, to concentrate on her ears.

The place was positively alive with sound. She could hear the brook, she could hear animals scurrying, she could hear birds singing. 

Natalie had always loved music. She'd taken piano lessons for the past seven years, since she was four. She could hear meaning in the songs; she could hear happy songs, sad songs, come-here-there's-food songs. She concentrated. After a few minutes, she figured out a tune that would convey, in music, her need for help. She whistled.

A bird swept down from the trees. Natalie concentrated. This was going to be difficult. She whistled a melody that managed to convey the idea of a search, then threw her head back and cried in a way as much like a goblin as she could.

The bird flew ahead of her, whistling a song that called to Natalie to follow. 

Natalie stepped forwards, pulling Lene and Dan with her. "What-" Dan began.   
  
"Shh!"

Natalie led them in silence, listening to the bird. It led them to what sounded like a brook. The bird landed on Natalie's shoulder and made a sound that sounded like drinking. 

"The goblins come here to drink," Natalie said aloud. "There must be a way for them to get out." She paused, then listened again.

Something was coming in. From the way it was tramping along, it had to be a goblin. "Hail!" Natalie shouted.

"What are you?" a goblin voice snarled.

"Please, can you tell me which way to the castle at the center of the Labyrinth?" Natalie asked.

The goblin snarled and made a very rude noise. Natalie heard drinking, and then she heard the goblin's footsteps running away. 

"I think that it's on the other side of this brook," Natalie said. She bent down and put her hand in the water. She leaned over, pushing the hand in up to her upper arm. "It feels too deep to wade," she said.

"Then where do we go?" Dan asked.

"I don't know-wait." She paused and listened. "There's music coming from that way," she said. "I think that it may be our best chance."

"Well, then, let's go to it," Lene said.

Natalie nodded and led the way.

They came upon a flutist. Natalie could barely distinguish its outline. "Hello?" she asked.

The music stopped abruptly. Natalie heard a scuffling noise, like someone small trying to run away. Desperate, she pursed her lips and whistled the tune the flute had just been playing.

The scuffling sounds stopped, and the creature came back. It blew one questioning note on its flute.

Natalie frowned and pictured Jareth. She had heard music when he'd appeared. She whistled that tune.

The response was immediate. The flutist hopped off of the rock and jumped backwards, playing its flute, and leading them forwards. Natalie followed it, pulling her brother with her. "What-" he demanded.

The flutist played a shrill, painful note on his flute. Natalie clapped her hand over Dan's mouth and whistled the most soothing tune she could think of. After a moment, the flute music took up again, sounding more mournful. The bird hopped off of Natalie's shoulder, and flew forwards, singing.

The fog cleared, revealing a huge stone maze. Natalie could see the flutist. He was short, with pointed ears and wearing bright red. He handed Natalie a rock, and played an A on his flute, then darted away.

The bird resettled itself on Natalie's shoulder. She heard a noise and looked down. The rock was playing an A note as well.

She turned. The note became a B flat. As she continued turning, the rock played the rest of the chromatic scale, falling an octave at D, and returning to A when she was back where she started. "It's a compass!" she said. "We're supposed to go-that way." She went towards the A, into the maze.

It was long and twisty. At times, they ran into T intersections where neither way led in the A direction. But they kept going, moving in a direction as close to the A note as possible.

Then they turned a corner and stopped suddenly. Before their feet, a void stretched. It was filled with globes of light, and lines of light connecting them. The lines kept twisting and bending around, and the globes kept moving, dragging the lines with them.

Behind her, Natalie heard Magdalene inhale. "Dragons and fog, and magical musical compasses, that doesn't surprise me," she said, "but-graph theory?"


	4. I Expected Magic and Dragons

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, the Labyrinth, or anything else from the movie 

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, the Labyrinth, or anything else from the movie.

Something, made of vertices and edges of light, came flying up to them and hovered in the air before them. Magdalene looked at it. "Petersen's Graph!" she said.

"What?" Susan asked. "Lene, what's going on?"

She knelt and took Susan's hands. "Susan, this next part looks like graph theory to me. A graph is a set ofthings, any kind, where some are attached to each other or next to each other in some way. That out there," and she waved her hand at the void and the dancing lights, "is the easiest way to think about them, but mathematically, it's the same as, say, a family tree, or a map of the London Underground-you don't care about where the stations are, or how far away they are, you only care about whether a train connects them."

"I still don't understand," said Susan.

"Don't worry about it. I think I'll have to take care of this one." Lene stood up. "If I can figure out what to do," she added.

"Get to the door," said something. 

Lene looked around. "Who said that?"

"Me. The Petersen Graph, or the starry thing hanging in front of you, if you don't like technical terms. Call me Star, it's shorter."

Lene turned to the Petersen Graph. It hovered in front of her: ten dots, five linked into a star, the other five linked into a pentagon. "How do I get to the door?"

"You see that vertex at your feet?" the graph asked. "All you have to do is connect it to the vertex in front of the door, and you and your friends can walk across to it."

"How do I do that? And for that matter, how do I connect things in here?"

"The same way you do anything in mathematics, of course. Proofs."

"Proofs about what?"

"In this case, Ramsey colorings. You have to start here, at Ramsey (2,2), and work your way across to Ramsey (4,4), in front of the door. There's vertices for all of the pairs of numbers, you know, and if you get the correct limit on the size of the Ramsey Graph, we'll make an edge to the next one."

"Right."

"What's a Ramsey coloring?" Dan asked.

"How large of a group of people do you need to ensure either m mutual friends or n mutual strangers?" Lene replied. 

"What does that have to do with those?" he demanded, pointing to the graphs in the void.

"You have a vertex-point-for each person, and you draw an edge between each vertex. Color each edge red if they're strangers, blue if they're friends."

She paused. "If you've got enough dots, you'll have to get either a red Kn or a blue Km. A Kn is n vertices with an edge between any pair of them. What I need to do, it sounds like, is to figure out how many large enough' is, if you want to make sure there's a K4 of one color or a K4 of the other."

"Is that a technical explanation?" the Star asked.

"Almost. Be quiet, please. I want to do this right." She frowned. "WellI can get all of the (2, n)'s. It's just n."

"Prove it," the graph challenged.

"If it has any blue edges at all, we're done. Otherwise, it's all red, and you need exactly n vertices to force a red Kn."

Edges blinked into existence. "Good girl," the Star said approvingly. "You'd better take them in order, though. The next one is (3,3)."

"Well-um. I think-um, K6?"

"You tell me," the Star said uncompromisingly. "But move so you're standing on (2,3) first-it's the one attached to the vertex in front of the door. You'll need it, and you can only use the ones you're on."

Lene swallowed and stepped onto the first vertex. It seemed very small to be walking on-and she'd always been afraid of heights. She gritted her teeth and moved her other foot onto the globe of light, holding her hands out to keep her balance.

It wasn't necessary. The vertex seemed to have its own gravity. She slid around it, so that her brother and sisters were below her feet. She didn't feet inverted at all-the vertex was still down. It was still terrifying, being over that void, but she felt better knowing that she wouldn't fall off. She gritted her teeth and walked along the edge to the next vertex, the one the Star said was (2,3). She looked across the void-another vertex hung there, glowing. It had to be (3,3).

Lene turned back and beckoned for her brother and sisters to follow her. They did, Dan and Natalie gripping Susan's hands tightly. Lene turned back and concentrated on her proof.

"Well-each vertex has five edges coming from it-so pick a vertex, and at least three edges will be the same color. Call it blue. Look at the vertices on the ends of those edges-either they form a red K3, or there's a blue edge-in which case, it makes a blue K3 with the edges to the first vertex. So yes, I'll say six."

An edge formed between Lene and the vertex she'd seen floating in front of her. Without any prompting from the Star, she walked across it.

"Next, try (3,4)," the Star said.


	5. To Play the Game

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, or the Labyrinth 

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, or the Labyrinth.

"So the answer is 25," Magdalene concluded, walking onto the last vertex. She shoved the door open. "Come on," she said.

Dan walked through the door into another room. The floor had a checkerboard pattern on it. The room had another door, which appeared to be locked.

The room was not empty. There were many things-or people-in there. Dan looked closer.

They were large chess pieces.

Dan frowned. What was going on?

A short figure stepped in front of the door, produced a key, and unlocked it. He pulled the door shut again, locked it, walked over to the board, and handed the key to a tall, crowned figure wearing black robes. The piece walked over and stood on a white square. The other pieces moved to the correct configurations for a chess game. But one piece was missing.

The white king.

Dan swallowed. He was the best chess player in the family, he knew that much. He probably had to get the key by capturing the black king. He stepped onto the black square, vacant in the white ranks, and turned to the other white pieces. "Will you obey me?" he asked.

"Yes!" they chorused.

"Well then-King's Pawn to King's fourth!"

The black pieces moved against him. He played carefully, gauging his opponent. After a few moves, he turned to his sisters. "The black pieces are good," he said. "This game is going to take a while. Hours, maybe."

"Take as long as you need," Magdalene said. "Just don't lose."

He turned back to the board. A few minutes later, he glanced back at his sisters. Both Natalie and Susan had fallen asleep with their heads on Magdalene's lap. Natalie's bird sat on Natalie's shoulder, watching him.

He turned back to the board and played.

After a few hours, he reached endgame. He was left with only himself and two knights-against an opponent with two pawns and a bishop. He stared at the board, nervous. He frowned. The black king was against his side of the board, with two escape squares threatened by one knight and Dan threatening two others-but was there a way to check the black king?

Yes. Suddenly he saw it. He made a quick move with his other knight, bringing the black king into checkmate. The black king removed the key from his pocket and handed it to the knight, who carried it to Dan.

Then the pieces all shrank down, to the size of normal chess pieces. Dan was left holding the key. "Wake up!" he yelled, and ran to the door, unlocked it, and flung it open. He stopped. The next room was enormous, with a high domed ceiling. The middle of the room contained a fairly shallow pit, too wide to jump, that ran from wall to wall. The pit seemed to be filled with fire.

Standing on the other side of the room was Jareth.


	6. The Wish

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, or the Labyrinth 

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, or the Labyrinth.

"How do we get across?" Natalie asked.

The bird hopped off of her shoulder and expanded. Natalie watched as it swelled, to a size large enough to carry her. Natalie stared up at it. It jumped into the air, beat its wings, and picked her up in its talons.

Natalie knelt in the little cage made of the bird's claws and held on. The bird flew, higher and higher, up towards the great domed ceiling. Then it circled down, landing in front of Jareth.

Natalie darted away from the bird, running back to the ditch. "Dan! Lene! Susan!" she shouted. "Can you get across?" She peered across the ditch.

Magdalene simply glided through. As she approached, Natalie could see that she was standing on the Star, the thing that had told her what to do in the graph room. Dan arrived a minute later, riding on a horse. He dismounted, and the horse shrunk down, into a chess knight.

Natalie looked up. Susan was riding on a dragon. A bright red, scaly, long-winged dragon. It swooped in for a landing, and Susan swung off of its neck. The dragon then shrank down, to the size of a small lizard, and crawled into Susan's pocket.

Magdalene and Natalie took Susan's hands. Natalie held out a hand to Dan, and led them across the room, to Jareth.

"You made it," he said. 

"Yes, we did," Magdalene said.

"Make your wish, then."

Magdalene frowned. "What exactly will you do?"

"I will make her sleep unaging, until such time as she can be healed. Then I will awaken her and arrange for her to be healed. That is all I will promise you."

Natalie looked down at Susan. "Are you sure you want to do this, sweetheart?" she asked her little sister. 

Susan nodded. "I want to be well," she said.

"You may never see any of us again." 

Susan swallowed. "I'm scared," she whispered. "But I don't want to die"

Magdalene stroked her hair. "Do you want me to say it?" she asked gently.  


"Yeah."

Magdalene stood up straight, looked straight at Jareth, and said, "I wish you would come and take my sister Susan away, right now."

Jareth stepped forwards and picked Susan up. He turned and walked away. Magdalene, Natalie, and Dan found themselves back in their living room again.

Susan was gone.

"What are we going to tell Mom and Dad?" Natalie asked.

"We aren't going to tell them anything. We watched the movie and all went to sleep early, and we're just as surprised as they are that Susan's gone. There's nothing we can tell them that would be believed."

Dan nodded. "She's right. There's no way that they'd believe that we wished for the King of the Goblins to come and take Susan to somewhere that they could cure her cancer-and had our wish granted."


End file.
